While all the national and state polls out since the first presidential candidate debate have been going Obama’s way, one poll out today is bucking the trend. And I am really surprised at which poll it is – the ABC News/Washington Post poll from after the debate. As with all polls it is more important to keep and eye on the trends in a single poll so that you compare apples to apples. All recent polls show a shift towards Obama – but this one shows the complete opposite, and in some surprising areas.

Here’s some key numbers to ponder (parenthesis show McCain edge or deficit). First the bottom line on likely voters:

9/29/08 – Obama=50, McCain=46 (-4)

9/22/08 – Obama=52, McCain=43 (-9)

From a 9 point lead to a 4 point lead on one week, cutting Obama’s lead in half and into a statistical tie. That is a lot of movement in one week, and in the total opposite direction of all the other polls. Â Now the bottom line on registered voters:

9/29/08 – Obama=49, McCain=45 (-4)

9/22/08 – Obama=52, McCain=42 (-10)

A ten point lead down to a 4 point lead in one week, an even steeper decline. Other stunning internals:

Independents: Obama=45, McCain=48 (+3)

White Women: Obama=43, McCain=54 (+11)

That deficit in the women’s vote is not good for Barack at all. Â And some other trending numbers on specific issues which took me totally by surprise. First, the economy

9/29/08 RV – Obama=50, McCain=43 (-7)

9/22/08 RV – Obama=53, McCain=39 (-14)

Again, Obama has lost half his lead, in one week, on an issue that is supposedly an Obama strength – if you listen to the liberal news media! How did he lose half his lead in one week?

Now how about views on fixing the financial crisis:

9/29/08 RV – Obama=50, McCain=40 (-10)

9/22/08 RV – Obama=51, McCain=38 (-13)

I am simply stunned Obama is not gaining here, but at least his loss is contained on this issue. Now how about something outside Obama’s strengths, like Iraq:

9/29/08 RV – Obama=45, McCain=50 (+5)

9/22/08 RV – Obama=49, McCain=45 (-4)

What’s up with this? A 9 point swing in one week and total reversal of positions? There are other stunners here, but clearly this poll is bucking the trends of the other polls. Then again, it was the first to detect the Obama bounce coming during the pre-debate period if you look back to the 9/7/08 numbers. Back then McCain was leading. Is this a harbinger of another future drop in the polls for Obama? Or is it just an aberration, an outlier?

Three states have flipped back into John McCainâ€™s column in the Hedgehog Report Electoral College Watch as new polls from American Research Group in North Carolina, Nevada and Virginia all put John McCain ahead of Barack Obama.

Pay close attention to these paragraphs from a recent Victor David Hanson op-ed:

Donâ€™t Tread on Them

The white working class is tiring of the constant sermons on race, either chauvinism or veiled threats or overt insults. Obamaâ€™s supporters really need to cool it, and stop suggesting that at each dip in his polls, Americans are proving less than noble people. The only thing that will really lose them the working-class vote is the gun-to-the-head, youâ€™d better vote this way or else attitude.

I grew up among the Democratic working classes, and I can vouch for one eternal truth about them: anyone who lectures them about what they â€œmustâ€ doâ€”or elseâ€”will simply achieve the opposite result, every time. Time might be better spent making the very difficult argument that 60% of the white vote going for McCain, not 95% of the African-American vote going for Obama, is in some way proof of Americaâ€™s unhealthy racial chauvinism.

Obama is not even trying to make the white working class comfortable with his candidacy. He and his fellow travelers use of the race card means they are making him a Jesse Jackson/Al Sharpton Democratic politician to the White Working Class. Can you say “Bradley Effect?”

Obama isn’t attemping to win anymore.

He is trying to make McCain lose.

And to delegitimize a McCain victory as “racist” if it happens.

If McCain really wanted to blow the Democrats out of the water, he would start calling the sub-prime financial mess a “Failed Affirmative Action Housing Scheme” and walk away with a 10% margin in the popular vote on election day.

Doing so would identify the economic mess firmly with the Democrats and in particular hang it from the necks of the Democratic Congress.

Summary: Unless McCain drops the bi-partisan thing and assigns
blame for the failed Community Re-Investment Act, a Democrat
law that forced the banks to make risky loans to folks who couldn’t
afford to buy a house, he will lose the election.

The article makes a good case for why there no ifs or buts, candies or nuts,
about McCain’s position.

We all see it happening. McCain can choose glorious failure if he
insists. Hi Bob Dole.

McCain has an ad out with Pres. Clinton blaming the democrats for failing to reform Fannie and Freddie. It is a start and maybe McCain will get back to the CRA.

However, one point, although the banks had pressure to make risky loans under CRA, most would have refused, paid a fine, sued in court, or done something else other than complying with the CRA. The CRA got teeth when Fannie and Freddie started to buy the risky loans from the banks. This gave the banks a backstop to mitigate the risk of ageeing to the CRA requirements.

On McCain’s rise in the recent polls. I think Obama is flattening out in his support and McCain is regaining his. My theory is that the MSM has not been able to play up Obama’s performance at the debate because the financial mess has dominated the news cycle since Sunday.

Obama lost the debate badly. The MSM spun it as a win and the majority of viewers were democrats. If conducted a poll of 40% dems, 25% rep and 30% ind and Obama had a 10% lead, you would laugh at my sample composition. When you do a poll of who won the debate you generally poll only those who actually watched the debate. Since I did not watch the debate, when the poll people called on Saturday morning the first question was did I watch the debate. I said no (click went the telephone).

The fact that Obama lost the debate is just trickling down to the non affiliated voter. The independent voter did not like what they saw of Obama during the Republican nomination and his poll numbers tanked. With the financial crises the independents went into an anybody but republicans mode. The debate and the roots of the financial mess are causing the independents to put Obama under the microscope again.

If enough independents finally reject Obama as AJ has then McCain can still win the election. Like it or not the failure of the Republican party circa 2005 and 2006 has made this election a referendum on Obama.